Page 11 of The Arcane Taste of the Witchwood Boys (The Witchwood Boys #4)

Kate

Marlowe turns me into a dirty mess, satisfying himself on my body and dragging his hat brim down on either side of his face as he comes. Bites his lip. Really puts on a good show for me.

He releases me from my restraints and cuddles me in a way that’s totally opposite to the hard dicking I just got from my coven. My heart beats with love, but my stomach roils with hunger.

I can still feel it, this yawning sense of emptiness inside of me. Something to be filled. And not in a good way, like with three giant witch cocks. No, this is a hunger that smells like iron and innards. It’s a creeping coldness that shocks the bones and paralyzes the spirit.

I want to eat everything and everyone to fill that endless chasm.

And now I know firsthand what was going through the head of the Hag Wytch.

“Alright.” Lo is staring at the ceiling, like he can’t bear to look at me. Then his attention shifts and grabs hold of mine, dark claws reaching. His shadow rises up and over me, sweeping the quiet room in darkness. “I can’t let our horny asses get us killed. What do we do now?”

The way he sweeps his tongue around his entire mouth, it’s too much. Too long. Too creepy. Too goddamn sexy. Marlowe laughs, rough and mean, because he knows he’s playing right into my weaknesses.

Tanner joins us on the mattress, but he purposely doesn’t touch me. Can’t control yourself over there, East? His eyes and mine meet, and he looks at me like I’m the one showing my hand.

“Eyes to yourself, kitten. You don’t deserve to look at me like that.” Tanner crosses his arms as he leans back against the headboard, closing his eyes. He’s teasing, but he’s also tired. All three of them are tired.

They’re pretending like they’re okay, but they’re not.

None of us are.

Brooks appears beside the bed without moving at all. I don’t know how he does that, but it scares the shit out of me. He was over by the vanity, stirring something, and then I blinked and he’s … right fucking here.

“Crap,” I murmur, and the edge of his mouth lifts. I know I’m in trouble. I know I’m going to be in even worse trouble when I try to run again.

“Perversions are part of magic,” Brooks says to Marlowe, over my head like I’m not even there. I realize abruptly why I never stood a chance in resisting them. When the three of them work together, they’re impossible. “Our horny asses are going to save our lives.”

“You cannot fuck your way out of this curse,” I grind back at him. I’m tired of being treated like I have no brains. I’m right about this. I am. And I’m going to prove it. Brooks puts his hand to his forehead, closing his eyes and doing his best to breathe through his annoyance.

“ Yes we can. ” He opens his eyes again and glares at me. “I’m not going to argue with you anymore. Either you comply, or I make you comply. You seem to love it when I force my hand, so that’s what I’ll do.” He looks haughtily at his boys, like they’re a three-man unit posed to fight against me, the enemy. “Hand her ass to me.”

“I am a human person,” I state haughtily, like everything is normal and I didn’t die. Like they didn’t die. Like I didn’t agree to the worst fate imaginable in exchange for their lives.

I have become the Hag Wytch, the loneliest creature in the woods—and not by chance. But because the curse is clever, because it also makes her want to eat. Even spirits aren’t safe, swallowed up and locked inside the gullet of a forest beast.

“Are you?” Brooks asks, crawling onto the bed, naked and wearing only his hat. He flops back against the old wood headboard and then pats his lap. Marlowe pushes me over and Tanner helps him, the pair of them maneuvering me easily where they want me. My naked thighs are spread wide over Brooks, dripping the mixed cum of our coven all over him.

We study each other, and I see that he loves it as much as I do.

“What do you mean are you? What sort of stupid question is that?” I cross my arms over my breasts to hide them from Tanner’s prying eyes. He wouldn’t let me look at him, so I won’t let him look at me. “Treat me like a human being, Brooks. It’s simple. Consider that I might be right about this. It’s too dangerous for us to be together right now.”

Tanner scoffs at that and shakes his head. Marlowe scowls and uses his shadow to shut the curtains—not that it matters since we’re the only living things that aren’t asleep. Two whole worlds. Well, as far as I can see. Perfect silence. No animals. No people. No electronics. A world suspended in time.

I’m so incredibly grateful that my song didn’t put these men to sleep.

The Hag Wytch … what happened to her coven? Maybe she never had one. Maybe she ate them. If she ate her coven, then she’d be all alone every night but for the moonless ones.

Totally. Devastatingly. Alone.

I swallow down my nerves. My fear. If I allow those feelings to manifest in front of these men, I won’t be able to hide it from them, and it’ll be even harder for me to save their lives.

“Are you a human, Kate?” Brooks repeats, taking my face between his hands. He looks down at me with the stern, cold expression of a leader. “Because last I checked, you were a witch. Why would you run from us when you know we have magic? We can fix things.”

“You … you three killed yourselves for me,” I whisper, and the words are loud in the perfect silence. Marlowe has crawled to me from the right while Tanner has moved around us to take up the space on my left. They all crowd in close, leaving zero space between our bodies. Marlowe’s warm, sweaty chest against my arm. Tanner’s rough fingers curled and clamped over the pale expanse of my thigh. “That’s not fixing things. That’s making everything worse. From the very beginning, I told you guys that I deserved to be involved in the decision making.”

I use both hands to tuck my hair behind my ears as Marlowe grabs a hold of it from behind. His face is against the side of my neck now, and I can feel his teeth when he talks.

“ Let us die, Kate. We haven’t changed that rule from the day we met. You broke protocol first, and you’re not getting out of this one.” He sinks his teeth into my neck, like all the way into my neck. Witch fangs cutting deep, but failing to make me bleed. My skin heals around his teeth, and he holds me there, like an animal. A growl rumbles in Marlowe’s chest that vibrates into my very bones, and I let out a pleased whimper against my will.

“Fuck.” This is from Tanner, his silver eyes fixed on the center of Brooks’ perfect abs and then straight through them to the center of the earth. He drags his eyes up to mine and I wait to hear what he has to say, this man who tracked and successfully caught a woman with the powers of a god. I sigh and press my hand down on his, trying to have a rational conversation with my bare tits on display, and my naked pussy on Brooks’ firm thighs. The urge to grind my hips is almost as bad as the hunger I’m choking down. “You’re right, love,” he murmurs. “That part was selfish. We should’ve told you what we were doing. It wouldn’t have changed anything to keep you informed.”

“N-no.” I’m sputtering but frustrated. Happy but confused. Comfortable but terrified. Turned-on … but hungry. So hungry. All day long, I’ve tried eating normal food to fill that gap, raiding the cabinets at my house. At other people’s houses. Avoiding Tanner and eating my way through the city.

Then, for a good ten or so minutes there, I blacked out. I don’t remember anything, but from one minute to the next, I was starving and then I was covered in blood. I’m sure that I killed somebody or something. That I … ate them.

“No?” Brooks repeats, breathing heavily, but calm. He’s not erect anymore. Or yet. Anyway, he doesn’t have an erection. “Did you ever stop to ask us our opinions?”

He’s … right. I hate it when he’s right. But he doesn’t understand the curse’s hunger. I’m trying to tell him here, but he’s not listening.

“You can tell me, but it won’t change my mind,” I retort, realizing that I’m implicating myself in the same problem that they’re confessing to. Whether or not it will change things, I should tell them. “As soon as I get the chance, I’m leaving before I start trying to eat you. Until you can fix that part of the problem, it is what it is. I’ll keep running.”

Marlowe bites down harder on my neck, and I gasp, digging the nails of my left hand into the back of Tanner’s while the claws on the right cut into Brooks’ thigh. Neither of them flinch. I do, but they don’t. I wiggle my body, and it doesn’t help. The clamp of Lo’s jaw on my neck is both comforting and strange, feral. It’s an inhuman response to a very human emotion: fear.

He doesn’t want me to go anywhere, and neither do I. It was never about want. I’m being practical: if I stay with the men too long, the curse’s hunger will overpower my rational senses. I could black out and wake up with their blood on my hands next time.

I won’t take that risk.

“You have no moral high ground,” I tell the three of them, my voice rough. It’s so tempting to give in, to agree with them, let them handle this. But I can’t. I need to keep moving. They should be figuring out what to do about the gate, how to put me inside until … if … there’s something we can do about this curse. “Can we at least agree that we’re all on the same level?”

“No.” Brooks shakes his head, the eyes on his hat softening even if he controls the ones on his face. He looks stern, but his hat is clearly simping for me right now. “But we can put the discussion aside for now. Tell me your symptoms.” He snaps his fingers, drawing up a little flame. Brooks flicks them and the flame jumps from his hand to the fireplace, setting the logs ablaze.

Our shadows give a collective sigh, sharp and pointy and etched up the walls and onto the ceiling. The crackling fire makes the space feel warm and safe. Cozy. Like the cottage in the Witchwoods, a refuge from space and time.

“I feel like I’m dying.” I close my eyes and lean my head into Marlowe’s. A sigh escapes me, like coming home. It won’t last. But I enjoy it anyway. “I want to eat everything in sight. Including you. Even while you were fucking me, I was thinking that it felt good but it’d be better if I could taste your blood at the same time.”

“Could that be it?” Brooks muses, his voice low, like he’s working through those wild thoughts of his in real time. I appreciate it, him finally letting us all know what he’s thinking as he’s thinking it. Not on his own, all by himself, alone in the living room. But with us. Together

I start to get antsy. I’m so weak against their collective desires. Makes it worse because they’re my desires, too, and they know it. I’m like a wet piece of tissue paper being pulled three ways between them.

“You mean bleed ourselves and let her drink while we fuck? If we have salve on hand, and we take turns …” Tanner trails off, and I hear, rather than see, him lick his lips. Wet. He’s hungry, too. I feel hot as I lean into Marlowe’s arms and he wraps his body around me.

Comforting.

Brutal, but comforting.

Even if the guys find a way to push back my hunger, what if I don’t age alongside them? What if I can’t die, like the Hag, until somebody else takes on my curse? And how do I do that? How did the Hag herself do it?

I feel like I was tricked by a witch much cleverer than I.

Brooks slips his hand between my legs, and I gasp as his fingers enter me, playing around with the mess they all left behind.

“Only one way to find out. Add the contents of the cauldron to the jar and bring it here,” he instructs Tanner, and I blush as he plays with me. It feels too good to say no, even though I know I should. “We’ll make fresh salve with this. We’re running low, and it’s crucial. I can’t wait to see what this batch will do, mixed with all four of us.”

That’s right. The salve we had before was made by the three of them, before I ever showed up. How much better will this batch be? I want them to have this, so they can heal if they need to.

Tanner unhooks a charm from his hat and pours the glittery pink powder onto my shoulder before fetching the jar for Brooks.

“What did you just do?” I ask him, and he gives me this sorry, kitten look that’s total bullshit. He isn’t sorry about anything. He knows exactly what he’s doing.

“You threw a lust spell at me earlier. Fair’s fair.” The edge of his lip lifts up as my body catches fire, and his hands land on my hips. I’m pulled into Tanner’s lap.

Marlowe and Brooks shift to fill the space between us as Tanner puts the jar under my pussy and coaxes our mixed cum into the vessel. I look into his eyes as he does it, stroking a fire with his fingers that I want him to fan to flames with his cock.

“Fuck me, please,” I beg him, and he laughs. Mission success on his part. Also partially my fault for putting that idea into his head by throwing a lust spell at him first.

“We need every drop.” Brooks is behind me, reaching between my legs and spreading me wide for Tanner. “Remember: if you’re a good girl, you get what you want much quicker than if you’re bad. If you’re naughty, Kate, then next time we catch you, I won’t be so nice.”

“Nice?” I repeat back, but my voice is too high and breathy to be a condemnation. I sound like I’m agreeing to something. The sex is a little rough, but that’s the way I like it. The romance is good, too, such a soft, gentle contrast. He’s right: they are being nice.

So am I. I’m letting them fuck me even though I need to run. After this. Last time. One last time with each of them.

Marlowe takes the bottle from Tanner, screwing the lid in place and then licking off the excess juice on the outside of the glass. He gives me a look, and my eyes go wide as he leans in and grabs the back of my head at the same time, fingers burying into my hair.

Taste me, Kate, his eyes say as he drops his mouth to mine and kisses me. I open up at the pressure of his tongue, and he gives me back what he got off that bottle.

I’m dragged down and over Tanner’s cock, but Marlowe doesn’t let me go, kissing me with that filthy, dirty mouth as Brooks’ hands roam up my ass to my back, to the wings on either side of him. He caresses the feathers, and even though these are brand-new appendages of mine, I feel them like they’ve been there forever.

Erotic. His touch on them is erotic.

My mouth moves seamlessly from Marlowe to Tanner, both of them a little rough in the face. Tanner I expect stubble from, but Lo is usually nice and smooth. Brooks, too, but he’s as rough as they are when he rubs his chin against my shoulder.

I put my arms around Tanner’s neck and catch his stare when our faces come close. There’s a little more blue in those irises than there was before.

“There’s no world in which I’m happy and you’re not. Sorry, Kate. That isn’t possible. I won’t let you go—not even if you’re the Hag Wytch.” He kisses his way up my throat, along my jaw, finds my lips again and buries his tongue between them.

Our joining bodies are the only sound besides the wind and the bay and the fire burning merrily in the hearth.

My eyes fall to the sweaty thump of his pulse. My stomach tightens and twists on itself, and the world goes—

—dark.

I come to with my teeth tearing through the skin on Tanner’s neck, spraying his blood into my shocked face as it pumps from the exposed artery in his neck. What the fuck?! His cock slips out as I stumble to my feet, torn between trying to help him and trying to run. What if I try to stop the bleeding and I bite him again? What if I don’t stop the bleeding and he bleeds to death?

He’s well on his way to passing out, to bleeding out, to dying.

Brooks rushes to retrieve the fresh jar of salve, slapping a massive glob of sweet minty paste on the wound. Marlowe has his hands around Tanner’s neck, trying to hold him together enough for the salve to take effect.

My hunger roars, and I realize that I’m licking my lips, that the taste of Tanner on my mouth is pleasant. The lust in my veins is swamped with need for the taste of flesh, not just the thrust. I want to eat them, not fuck them.

Brooks takes over Tanner’s wound as Marlowe slips off the bed and comes at me.

“Get over here, Kate. Now. ” He lunges for me and we slam into the wall together, cracking the plaster and sending more paintings crashing to the floor. I throw my wings forward, trying to knock him off, but it doesn’t work. We’re destabilized, falling to the ground together.

The hunger wails.

I see Lo’s neck. I find myself snapping at his throat. Marlowe is quick enough to scramble off of me, but I pursue him rather than the other way around. I attack him, throwing him into another wall and breaking his arm. He can’t hide the sound of pain, clutching at it as he bleeds all over the floor, forcing himself to his feet through the discomfort.

He eyes me warily, trying to circle around toward the window.

My gaze lands on his taut, muscular belly, and I imagine tearing him open and watching his intestines fall out. My stomach rumbles, and I spin on my heel, naked and fleeing with my lover’s blood dripping down my skin.

Tanner’s okay. Thank God, he’s okay. I catch sight of him on my way past, and he’s alert enough to sip some water from Brooks’ cupped hand. His neck is healed enough that the blood has stopped spurting, but it was this close.

I throw my body out the window and onto the roof, but Marlowe is on me, knocking the pair of us down. We roll together down the steep slope and then off, plummeting toward the ground. I fold my wings behind us for a cushion, ensuring that I hit first with him on top of me.

I can heal from anything. I’m the Hag Wytch, remember?

We hit with a pair of grunts, and I feel bones break, skin split. I’m bleeding and crying as I try and fail to untangle myself from him. He wrestles my wrists and slams them into the grass, peering down at me with wide eyes. The fresh flowers on his hat are crushed, and the scent of ruined wildflowers mixes with sea salt and blood.

He’s panting, dripping red into my face, terrified and angry and strong.

But not as strong as the Hag.

WIth a scream, I throw him off as gently as I can, knocking his body into one of the support posts for the front porch.

“Kate, just stop, ” Marlowe grinds out, but I can’t. I won’t. My vision is going in and out—and not from my injuries. I’m going to black out again. I’m going to eat someone.

I’m going to eat one of my husbands.

“If you can figure out how to help me, then help me. But I … I can’t stay.” I stumble back in the dewy grass, past a man and a woman sprawled out on the sidewalk. Probably came over to the Carson Mansion for dinner. Bet whatever they would’ve ordered won’t taste as good as they do.

I find myself squatting down beside them and wetting my lips again.

No, Kate! No! You’re better than this. You can do better than this. I make myself stand up, finding Marlowe closing the distance between us. He’s big and dark-eyed, blood-streaked skin and clenched teeth and a flaccid cock that was inside of me all of twenty minutes ago.

That was an indulgence I never should’ve allowed.

Tanner appears on the roof, broom in hand, and I panic, turning and launching myself into the air with a flap of those powerful wings.

That’s the last thing I remember for several hours.